My niece is deployed in Kuwait right now. She's in the Army. She's stuck overseas for the next several months and thereby can't do much to take care of her daughter right at the moment. Before the Middle East, she was stationed somewhere in Alaska. She has/did have legal custody of her daughter. Like many young people she seems prone to making foolish mistakes. Like hooking up with the father of her child, having a child with another young and foolish person (USE CONDOMS, PEOPLE), and believing the Army's rhetoric about how they'll make your life all better if you join up. She wants to be a mother and take care of her daughter but can't for obvious reasons. She claims the Army has refused to offer her any legal help despite their willingness to ship her thousands of miles from her daughter.
Her former partner (I'm not certain if they were married) was living with her and their daughter in Alaska. He was also in the Army, but was discharged for undisclosed reasons. His employment status is unknown and/or sketchy at best. My mother claims he hasn't sent any child support except for a dress. He has made no effort to see or communicate with his daughter and expects the girl's caregivers to make the effort to contact him. Despite all of this, he is fighting for custody of his daughter. The impression I get is that he simply doesn't want to have to pay child-support.
My mother has documented legal custody of the child until my niece returns. As far as parenting skills go, she must be pretty good at it. She raised me after all. However, she has, over the years, raised five kids and helped raise a dozen or so grandchildren and half as many great-grandchildren. She also has bad knees and the usual health issues of a person of her age. A 2-year-old is probably the last thing she needs right now.
The child is living (mostly) with my sister. Not my brother who is the child's grandfather. He is only marginally involved with the family in any way. She seems to have taken excellent care of the girl. According to my mother, when the child arrived, she was given to screaming tantrums, profanity that would make a sailor blush, and a few bizarre behaviors indicative of exposure to situations a 2-year-old shouldn't be exposed to. These days she appears to be a fairly normal, fairly well-adjusted child. She intermittently calls my sister Mama and/or her first name as would most girls her age with their primary care-givers. She doesn't like talking on the phone. And she is permanently attached to a small collection of bean-bag-types stuffed animals.
Add to all this mess a fourth person, an "older friend" of the father who is helping him lay claim to the child. My family refers to this man as a child molester, although I'm fairly certain they have no evidence. What they've heard is that he trades sexual favors for financial help and friendship with a mixed group of 20-somethings including the father. He seems intent on helping the father, despite having no legal "dog in the fight" as it were. The father claims he sent child support money to this man (instead of the child's actual care-givers) who then used it to buy clothes for her. He apparently offered to fund legal council for the father as well as travel expenses when he comes to get his daughter.
To complicate matters further there is a "child advocate" involved whose most helpful advice so far has been to suggest that my sister call the father, put him on speaker phone, and follow the little girl around in lieu of the supervised visitation he's entitled to.
Now the father claims he's won the custody battle, despite the fact that the custodial parent is deployed and it's technically illegal for them to take any action against her while she's overseas. And usually courts in the U.S. tend to be reluctant to take children away from their mothers (or their representatives) unless abuse or neglect is proven. He's coming to Georgia in a few months to collect his daughter with the help of the alleged child molester. My family is horrified. I told them that they had legal documents indicating that the clild was to remain with them until my niece returns from Kuwait. That they didn't have to do anything he told them to until they were served legal papers. They go on and on and on about the whole situation, but won't bother retaining legal council. What my mother was willing to do was to email the office of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. They were most conciliatory but not at all helpful with their form response. Go figure.
Rien à être fait (or however Becket spelled that). I don't really know why I'm sharing all of this. Except that it's sad. Divorce is heinously difficult, especially for children the involved. There's no need to make it worse. Sure, children are resilient. My great-niece seems to be doing well under the care of my sister. But all this battling and back-biting seems unnecessary. And why doesn't the Army step in to support its personnel? Or just let her go if they're not going to help her?
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